This invention relates in general to wire connections, and, in particular, to an improved technique to connect the ends of an elongated wire member.
More specifically, but without restriction to the particular use which is shown and described, this invention relates to wire connections and the method and apparatus to secure the ends of an elongated member, such as bale wire and the like, employed to retain bales of material for transport and storage. The bale wire connection of the invention includes a pair of loops forming interconnecting members, which may be interlocked by automated techniques to form a strong coupling of the ends of the bale wires used in securing bulk material.
It is common practice to retain a large package or bundle of material, generally referred to as a bale, by means of a plurality of elongated straps, metal wires and the like wrapped around the material. Such baling members thus retain the material in its baled form to enable it to satisfactorily be transported and stored during various stages from its raw form to its final utilization by a textile mill and the like. Many types of material generally are shipped and stored in bales, such as waste paper, wool, man-made fiber staple, cotton, fiberglass and the like.
The use of metallic wire is one of the preferred techniques for securing bales of such material for transport. Bale wire is particularly suitable for use in the securement of bales of cotton that are transported from the gin, where the raw cotton is separated, to the warehouse, where the cotton is stored and later sold for use in textile mills and the like. At the cotton gin, the raw fiber cotton is separated from the remaining plant material and is pressed by a press machine into a bale having a selected density and size. In general, seven different sizes of bales for cotton are accepted for shipment in the United States with varying dimensions and density per cubic foot. The density of the cotton bale compressed at the gin mill may range from a low density bale, requiring six bale wires, to a high 28 pound density one, requiring eight wires for adequate securement.
In use of bale wire for securing cotton bales of the type described, it is standard practice in the industry to apply the tie to the bale at the gin, while the bale is still under compression. The wire is wrapped or looped around the bale, and its ends are manually secured together by a square knot joint or crosshead connection, a descriptive term derived from the physical configuration of the wire at the joint. The use of the well-known manual type connections to join the ties applied to the bale presents several deficiencies in use. The strength of the square knot connection, for example, is generally subject to fracture at a load substantially less than the failure strength of the wire itself. Because of its inherent weakness, a square knot connection must be situated in most uses disadvantageously at the top of the bale, where the least tensile load is encountered. Upon release of the compression being applied to the bale by the gin press, the wire tie is subjected to a considerable loading, such that the square knot configuration of the joint is pulled into a smaller compressed form, which cannot later be readily disengaged.
A preferred cotton bale is known as a gin universal density bale. Such a bale is compressed to a density of 28 pounds per cubic feet directly at the gin and can be shipped to the cotton user without intermediate recompression. Ties for a gin universal bale must be no smaller than 9 gauge, and a joint having a breaking strength considerably greater than 90% of the wire strength must be employed, if situated at the side of the bale. A square knot type connector cannot attain such results, since it is only approximately 65% as strong as the wire.
Being a dense bale compressed directly at the gin, it is becoming disadvantageous to secure wire to a gin universal by hand methods. Federal regulations, such as O.S.H.A., and the like have rendered hand tying to be more and more unacceptable. Moreover, conventional hand baling uneconomically requires the use of two or more men to accomplish the task. Because of these reasons, automated techniques for applying wires to secure bales is becoming a necessity in high speed ginning operations. However, prior art connections directly formed on the machines at the bale have not achieved the high strength levels necessary to secure the highly compressed gin universal bales, and other types, in a manner acceptable to meet industry requirements. One common connector, which is stronger than a square knot coupling, is subject to unraveling, while other prior techniques do not demonstrate the strength characteristics needed for joints situated at the side of the bale.
In addition, known designs of apparatus for automating the baling operation are not satisfactory in creating a suitable connection or functioning with the efficiency that is desirable in the field. Past equipment suffers from numerous deficiencies including a lack of operational speed, the employment of overly complex mechanisms, and/or lack of reliability.